104: “And If Anyone Here Were to Object...”

My brother Carl is an unsightly man. He has great eyes, a perfect nose, wonderful smile, and glorious head of hair. But putting it all together just doesn't work. We all know people like this. Every individual part's perfect, but the gestalt is very unpleasant on the eyes.

Yet, he had so many sexual conquests of beautiful women that he stood as a wonder. Perhaps they were all one-part-at-a-time women. Here at the wedding, he is unsurprisingly on the prowl, eyeing the briedesmaids.

He isn't the Best Man--I am--although, in a manner of speaking, he's really better than the rest of us. In a caveman sowing oats wildly and widely sort of way.

How scorn and resentment, inherent in officially decreeing ugliness, mixes with envy is a force of nature. If you see it coming, you should just get out of the way. Carl didn't.

Neither saw it coming.

Nor got out of the way.

And so they swept in, high-testosterone cowboys and posse-posers, SWAT'ing Carl and hustling him into a black Suburban. This sort of thing happens so often that even here, at a wedding, it isn't considered rude. Carl was cuffed and--just for good measure--tased.

"We won't be seeing him no more," I said to the Maid of Honor, standing as Best Man opposite her. She was "OK-looking," I guess.

I side-eyed our line of groomsmen. Among all of us there was an unspoken appreciation: all the wannabe sexual conquerers everywhere had just moved up a notch.

I tilted my head to the Maid of Honor and whispered, "Remember when you used to say 'being ugly isn't a crime...yet!'?"

"I won't miss 'em," she laughed.

Hmm, I thought, just give her a few years.

Now I stood as the unofficial best man, too, replacing Carl. I eyed the bridesmaids and vowed to obey the law.

First they came for the stupid people, and I said nothing.

Then they came for the big-nosed people, and I said nothing.

When they came for the ugly people, I was OK.

When they came for the people next door, I drew the blinds.

And when they came for my friends, I stood silent.

Then they came for me.

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Author's Notes:

A somewhat sideways homage to Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemöller, an outspoken critic of Hitler. Although there is little connection between the humor (if not irreverence) I was expressing and the pathos of Niemöller, there is that common thread that any group, sufficiently strong and armed, can denigrate and oppress any other group. Niemöller spent the last eight years of Nazi rule, from 1937 to 1945, in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. He may be best remembered for his postwar statement:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

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Word count (without Author's Notes): 366

My submission for Saturday, April 13: Day #104 of the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge.

All pictures are AI-generated, but the ugliness is not!

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